In a country as small as ours, there’s a certain
inevitability about the intimacy of the music scene; and yes, we’re not as big
as Dublin or London, but for punching above our weight Belfast cannot be
beaten. Last Friday night we witnessed another of our overachievers in full
flight, the awesome Silences. Launching their new single ‘The Sea’ (Review here)
our expectations were understandably high. Better still, the
collaboration between one of our best gig promoters Hidden Machine & our
friends at Chordblossom ensured a stellar line-up throughout. Now it was the
bands turn to live up to the hype…

Tasked with opening the show was Jealous Of The Birds, a
solo acoustic artist of sublime simplicity. Jealous Of The Birds (real name Naomi Hamilton) reputation has led
to many proclaiming her the next big thing, remarkably before even a single
live performance. Not a bad way to make your debut then, playing to a near
packed out Bar With No Name in support of one the country’s most exciting new
bands. It was a pivotal moment, as bohemia’s new hope could so easily have
welted in the spotlight. Thankfully here we saw an artist so intrinsically
relaxed, so totally at ease, that it felt like nothing more than a bedroom jam with a couple of friends. Songs from debut Ep ‘Capricorn’ radiated back to the audience, any worries
that Hamilton’s low-fi sound would be lost on stage immediately put to bed.
There wasn’t a great deal of chat between songs, but enough to show this was a
performer in her element. In all, Jealous of the Birds justified her well deserved praise. The faint shimmers of nostalgia which run through her songs gives
proceedings a timeless element, and rightly so.

Following behind were Dandy’s Loft, another band making
their rather big debut. Again, this band showed a wonderful confidence
throughout a set of varying velocity. Any band willing to combine electric
guitars with a ukulele will always command a certain amount of respect, but
even without this wonderful juxtaposition, Dandy’s Loft had this audience won
over from very early on. Dublin’s Patrick O’Laoghaire , aka ‘I Have A Tribe’, is
another young artist with a big following.
Already beloved by his home city and interestingly Berlin, I Have A
Tribe’s Bjork like melodies and gentle grace behind the keyboard was pretty
beautiful. Dressed in an oversized jumper, O’Laoghaire looks and sounds like
the finished product, the single ‘Yellow Raincoats’ particularly so.

So finally onto Silences, a band really beginning to make
waves across the mainland UK. On a night of quality performances, our headliner
did not disappoint. Frontman Conchúr White led his band through a blaze of
enthusiasm, whether head banging along to his own creations or thrashing the extra bass drum on stage, it was as rocky a performance as Silences are ever
likely to have given and what a welcome surprise it was. They of course know
how to hype up the crowd, as singles ‘Santa Cruz’ (“You can sing along to this
next one, you just need two words. One’s ‘Santa’, the other one’s ‘Cruz’”) and
‘The
Sea’, went down wonderfully with the
audience. At one bizarre point, we saw what their frontman described as “Silence’s
first ever mosh-pit”, so to was the extent of their energy.

This was the performance of a band on the rise, feeling
every song and feeding off the crowd.

With acts like this, it looks like we will be continuing to
punch above our weight for some time yet.

Taylor Johnson

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About Us

Encore NI is a non profitable music website/media organisation set up to review gigs, albums and singles, owned by Taylor Johnson & based in Belfast's Oh Yeah Centre. We proudly run & operate 'Modern Life Is Rubbish', a gig night with a difference.

Taylor has had work printed in various local and national newspapers, as well as various music websites and publications. To date he has worked and broadcast with the NME, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 4, Citybeat, Blast 106, BBC Radio Ulster & BBC Radio Foyle. He now co-runs 'Spectrum Festival', a yearly music festival held in The Mandela Hall and has just finished hosting 'Soundscape', a television series on Irish TV (Sky Channel 191) about local music.